Charles City Council moves toward allowing county rep on city zoning board

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

In a short regular meeting Monday, the Charles City Council considered and approved the second reading of an ordinance to allow a county representative to serve on Charles City’s Planning and Zoning Board.

Basically, the council is looking to allow one member who lives within 2 miles of the city on the commission. Currently all members must live within city limits.

“Given this is a recommendation board, and the council itself makes all final decisions, I feel it would be safe to move forward with this,” City Administrator Steve Diers said. “I think it’s probably just a good idea in general.”

Specifically, the council discussed whether or not one of the seven seats on the board can be filled by anyone within Floyd County who lives within 2 miles of city limits, which would require a change in ordinance. The first reading of the amended ordinance was approved at the Dec. 21 meeting.

Diers explained to the council that there has been an “ongoing need” to fill spots on the Planning and Zoning commission for the last couple of years.

“Recently we were able to achieve a full board of seven, but that ended when Larry Johnson recently passed away, and now it would appear that Emily Garden will need to resign as she is moving outside of city limits,” Diers reported. “These losses come at a critical time with planning and zoning, as they are working on a major city code updates with a private consultant.”

The Planning and Zoning Board is responsible for making recommendations to the City Council, which makes the ultimate zoning decisions.

Diers said that the Parks and Recreation Board, the Library Board and the Housing Board each currently has a member who lives outside the city limits. He stressed that the commission member doesn’t have to be someone who lives outside the city limits, but the amendment would allow them to be.

Diers said he had reached out to colleagues in other communities and learned that the cities of Forest City, Centerville, Treynor and Carlisle all allow at least one member from outside their city limits, while the cities of Spencer, Harlan, Decorah, Guttenberg, Independence and Indianola do not.

“Considering the discussion we’ve had recently about potential annexation study, and the two-mile ‘sphere of influence’ we have with county zoning, it would seem appropriate to allow a seat to be filled by a county representative,” Diers said.

If passed after final reading, the amended ordinance would read, “Members shall not hold any elective office in City government, and six (6) members shall be residents of the City. The remaining member shall be either a resident of the City or a resident of the area outside of the City over which the zoning jurisdiction (within a two mile radius of the City) of the City has been extended.”

This ordinance shall be in effect after its final passage, approval and publication.

Council members discussed whether or not anyone had received any feedback on the ordinance, and other than one comment on a community Facebook page, no one had seen or heard any. The council expressed hope that they would receive some public feedback before final reading and passage of the ordinance at the next regular meeting.

In other action Monday, the council appointed Cory Mutch to replace Dennis Petersen on the Park and Recreation Board.

The council also approved the renewal of beer permits and liquor licenses for the Columbus Club, Hy-Vee and Liquor Beer And Tobacco Outlet.

Before adjourning, the council went into closed session to discuss strategy with counsel “where litigation is imminent, where disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation,” as allowed under the Iowa Open Meetings Law. No official action can be taken during a closed session.

The entire meeting Monday lasted less than an hour.

The council will hold initial annual budget meetings on Wednesday and Thursday this week, Jan. 6-7. The annual budget planning meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 25.